Soft and Strange (слэш)

Sam is rapt, as he is every time Bilbo sits down to tell them a story. He is a brilliant storyteller, and his adventures twist Sam’s gut up into a litany of knots without fail. There is something about them. The strangeness…the danger…the queerness. It feels like an extra two seed cakes at elevenses. It feels like the odd, special, private knowledge that Thorin Oakenshield is alive, and that his beard is not long enough to tuck into his belt, like the stories say.